


The Sun Still Shines

by AllisonDiamond



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Day 2, Established Relationship, Heavy Angst, Hurt Jonathan Byers, Hurt Steve Harrington, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Transformation, stonathanweek2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 08:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13073367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllisonDiamond/pseuds/AllisonDiamond
Summary: Steve lets them change him into a freak like them, a merman, because if that means saving Jonathan, he is willing to go through with it.





	The Sun Still Shines

**Author's Note:**

> This is written for Stonathan Week, Day 2. The theme was monster hunting. Anyhoo, I don't advise going into this fic, thinking it is a sweet, light fic. It is not. It's not a dark fic per se, but it is very angsty. There is a happy ending, though. So read at your own risk.

Steve _allows_ the mer to sink her deadly fangs into his neck. It _hurts_ so damn much. He feels as if his skin has been ripped open and then sewn back on. But he puts on a brave face anyway. He can’t let Jonathan see him like this, can’t let him suffer any more than he is currently.

His _whole_ world revolves around Jonathan, and _Jonathan i_ s suffering so much right now. The mermaids have him in a cocoon where they are currently draining him.

If Steve becomes one of them, mates with them, they promise to leave Jonathan alone, and that’s all Steve could wish for really.

He wants to fight them, wants to crush their hearts till they turn to foam, but he is so goddamn _weak_ , so fucking powerless, and he can’t do a damn thing. He can’t even resist their stupid charms, their alluring scent, or even their sharp, shrill cries.

Steve is a _failure._ He fails Jonathan. Fails to protect him. Fails to be there when he needed him. If it weren’t for him, they wouldn’t be here, but he just had to _investigate_. Damn him and damn his curiosity.

He wants to laugh but he _can’t_ , not when new cells are being added in his body to form a freakish and new species.

Steve doesn’t know when exactly it happens. It’s not like he can put a time stamp on the exact moment it happens. He can’t tell the difference between what pain comes from the fangs clamped down on his neck, or the ones from the various bruises on his body, or from the change being forced down on him.

Then Jonathan struggles in the cocoon, this full-blown out panicking look setting in his eyes, and he screams something. Steve wishes he could assure him that everything is okay, that he has nothing to worry about, but that’s a lie, and even if Steve wanted to warn him, he couldn’t. He’s voiceless. It’s too painful to talk, to even cry.

Then he _looks_ down, finally have the courage to move his head around, and sees how his legs have spilt into a tail. Sees how red it is, sees the gems sparkling on it, sees how the skin around it seems dark and ripe. And that makes him experience another kind of hell.

He _can’t_ believe his legs are gone. He’s one of them now. He has a tail, a frickin’ red, with grown in gems tail. And on his back, there are a pair of dark red wings, which when arched up, he is sure to look pretty, with its beautiful feather-like quality, and the dark shade of black on edges of them, but right now, it looks like a mess.

He wants them gone. He doesn’t want the tails or the wings. He wants to be normal. He wants to be with Jonathan, wants him to hold him, wants him to kiss him, wants him to make love to him, wants him to tell him that this is all a nightmare, one which they are going to wake up from.

But that _just_ wouldn’t happen. This is real. This is happening. Steve has to learn to accept that. He’s now a freak. He’s one of them.

_You’re doing all of this for Jonathan_ , he tells himself when the mer releases him from her hold, and he stumbles on to the ground (is that it?) landing flat onto his ass (he still has that, does he?). 

“Your blood _is_ pure,” she says, “We do not accept your kind.”

Steve swallows and his eyes waters. No, she can’t mean that! She promises to release Jonathan if he _does_ this. She can’t do this to them. “I can be what you want,” he lets out, pleading, his wings arching up in the air, brightening the dark ocean with its memorizing bright glow. “ _Please._ Just give me a chance. I’ll,” he swallows painfully, as it starts to feel as if a lump has been stuck down his throat, “I’ll do anything you want.”

She looks at him thoughtfully and then gestures something to her army. “No, dear, I do not want you. You are incapable of saving us. We need a human with dark blood to survive for the years yet to come, which you are not.”

Steve feels as if his heart had been ripped out from his chest. “I _can_ be dark,” he says, as his wings folds in. “I _can!_ ” he shouts, not caring how much that is hurting him right now to do. “Please just let him go.”

The mer swims over to him; her purple tail trailing behind her, as her blue hair falls gracefully over her back. “I never intended to hurt you or your friend, darling,” she says in a regretful voice, and looks at the corner where Jonathan is being held.

Steve watches as the mer guards steps down from their post and releases Jonathan from the cocoon. _Jonathan_ , he breathes, he wants nothing more than to swim over to him right now, but he _can’t_ , not when she holds their lives in her hands.

She smiles at him and that frightens him. What if she plans on doing the same thing she did to him to find her human with the dark blood. Steve wouldn’t let her! He will fight till his last breath.

“You can go to him,” she tells him, that smile still brushing her dark red lips. “We have no need of you or him. We cannot reverse the transformation, but we can let you and your friend go, and hope that you are able to live normal lives again.”

Steve wants to bloody kill her right now. How can she say that with that little care in the world?! She has wrecked their lives. Had done things to them unimaginable to the human’s eyes, and now, she’s like, ‘go and be free.’

Fuck her!

He doesn’t tell her, or do any of the things running through his mind. Instead, he rushes over to Jonathan, and lifts his lifeless body off the ground.

“Jonny,” he chokes up, moving the hair off Jonathan’s face. “Asshole, don’t you dare die on me now. I don’t want to lose you. You mean the world to me. Open up your damn eyes!”

His heart breaks when Jonathan makes no attempt of opening his eyes, but then, by a miracle — it has got to be a miracle — Jonathan starts to cough and moves his hands around slightly.

Then slowly, his eyes flutter open, and he blinks, and smiles weakly up at Steve. “Steve,” he says weakly. “You look—”

“—Fantastic. I know, Jonny-boy. I imagine you wish that you hadn’t refused me that night now.” He laughs weakly. He’s so glad that Jonathan seems alright. He isn’t sure that they will ever be okay again, but this, this _is_ good.

“No, I still stand by my decision.” He reaches for Steve’s hand, and closes his hand around it. “Steve,” he begins in a more serious tone, “how you holdin’ up?”

“Good, good. Haven’t been better,” he brushes off Jonathan’s question as it is just a piece of old, wrinkly leaf that has fallen on his shoulder.

“Steve. I saw what they did to you! I know you aren’t okay. So tell me, shithead, how are you really?” Jonathan’s eyes flash a shade of dangerously dark brown.

Steve looks at Jonathan and smiles a little. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’m a _freak_ now, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay with that, you know?”

“I think you’re beautiful,” Jonathan says softly, reaching up to caress Steve’s face with his free hand. “I don’t care if you now have a tail where your legs used to be, or that you have wings now on your back. I still love you ‘cause you’ll still be you, and we will find a way to survive after that. We always do and we will continue doing so.”

“I know,” Steve says, holding the tears in. 

“But you don’t believe it?” Jonathan asks him.

Steve nods. “It’s stupid. I shouldn’t be feeling this way. They kept you confined in that disgusting piece of shit, and I was allowed to roam free.”

“No, no, don’t ever say that. You’re allowed to feel this way. And sure, I was kept in the cocoon, but I _wasn’t_ the one tortured, or had my own body remodeled to fit something inhuman.”

Steve leans into Jonathan’s touch. “This is all my fault. If I didn’t want to see what those damn things underneath the sea were, none of this would have happened. I’m sorry, Jonny. I’m so damn sorry.”

“You’ve nothing to apologize for,” Jonathan reminds him. “This isn’t your fault or mine or anybody’s really,” he says, letting ‘but those damn mers' go unsaid, but Steve catches it.

He continues, “You okay enough to travel ‘cause I don’t think I want to spend another minute in this hellhole?”

Steve nods.

Jonathan reaches up, grabs Steve’s face closer to him, and kisses him with a ferocious passion, letting him know that he is and will always be loved no matter what. Steve melts into the kiss, and thinks, _maybe, just maybe he will be alright after all of this._

As long as Jonathan is with him, anything is possible because Jonathan makes him feel safe, protected, loved, and cared for, and as long as he has that, he will be just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Have at me.
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://neenabthurman.tumblr.com)


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